04/25/2014

Bottom Line:Word Mess is an entertaining game that will have you coming back for more. With an ever-changing word cloud, Word Mess definitely works on your visual discrimination while keeping you entertained as well. If you are looking for a different type of word search, this game is for you!

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Word Mess, from Masala Games, is an entertaining and highly addictive game (just ask my husband who first said, “I am not playing this game . . ." and is still playing it an hour later). This game is created for kids age 5 and up, but more specifically those in middle school and older (including adults). So what is Word Mess exactly? Well, I am glad you asked.

Word Mess is a “seek and find” game, except instead of searching for pictures, you have to search for words in an ever-changing word cloud. Within the word cloud, some words are big, while others are tiny. As time goes past, more words are added to replace the ones you have already found. There are three types of game play: Quickplay, Survival, and Challenge. I think of the Quickplay mode as “practice.” You can choose from three different modes: looking for a given word, looking for words in a given category or looking for words that rhyme. Survival mode is a series of levels to see how far you can advance (Warning: You will start back at level 1 once you lose, unless you use a ticket to retry that level). Each level contains one of the modes, plus a bonus round — odd one out. Finally, you can challenge your friends at the end of any activity or level to see if they can beat your score (this is where the app's external links come in).

Word Mess is a great app to help with visual discrimination, attention, and vocabulary development. There is some music, but you are able to control whether it is turned on or off. Beyond that, there really are no other settings to control. Each mode is timed, which helps grab and keep your attention and continues to engage you time and time again. I also really enjoyed the challenges. I started out with a challenge to my husband, just to see what would happen. I have to admit this game helped us feel a little more connected on the days we only see each other for an hour in the morning. That may not be the intended purpose, but it certainly felt that way to us. My kid isn't old enough yet to play this game with us, but I'm thinking that same connectivity feature might work for parents and children too. Word Mess does use the game center to send challenges. If you do not already have a game center id set up, you will need to set one up to play the game with others.

While this app would be great with older kids, it is not really intended for younger children, despite the recommendation of ages 5+. I tried to play this with a few of my non-reading eight-year-old students. I thought if I read the words aloud to them, they would be able to identify the items in a category or find the words that rhyme. But we struggled due to the timed component. As I said, I really like the time component of the game, but I wish there was a non-timed option — it might allow for more teaching opportunities for therapists and parents both, and would perhaps open up play to younger users. Having a non-timed version would help with more difficult categories, too, since some might be over a kid's head. A non-timed option would allow you to stop and talk about what that category means.

A few iTunes reviews mentioned a desire to import your own words. I agree that this would be a fantastic improvement, and would also open this app up much more for classroom teachers. I can imagine a teacher sending out a challenge of science or social studies vocabulary words to their students! This would be a nice spin on a word search.

For therapists, Word Mess would be great to use with older students and adults. Occupational therapists might use it for tracking and visual discrimination. For speech language pathologists, this game would be great to work on rhyming, categorization, vocabulary development, and attention. In fact, I have one language student that has been working on maintaining attention within the classroom as well as increase his vocabulary development. Hello, dual goals! I think we will be using this app today to help practice holding that attention with distractions (much like the classroom) and work on vocabulary.

You can purchase "tickets" that allow you to retry a level, and you can also buy new puzzle packs ranging from $1.99 to $7.99. It's important to note, though, that it's not necessary to purchase any of these things. There's plenty to do with just your initial purchase of $2.99. One other thing to note: trying to play it on a small iPhone screen could really be tough on your eyes. It's much better suited for the larger screen.

Parents and adults, this game is just fun to play. You could use it for an educational purpose with your kids, just for you, or to help keep that connection in an otherwise chaotic day.

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Jenni sees word clouds in her sleep now. SmartAppsForKids.com was paid a priority review fee to complete this review in an expedited manner.